


Step Towards Extraordinary

by asuralucier



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Food, Friendship, Mild Angst but Happiness All Around, Multi, Origin Story, Paris (City), PhDead, Pre-film, statistics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-04-24 13:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19174120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: Arthur goes to Paris on sabbatical. His landlords are very attractive.





	Step Towards Extraordinary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lake (beyond_belief)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/gifts).



> Arthur’s research is based on this: https://logological.org/girlfriend. The figure 6.52 billion is from 2005.
> 
> Beta-ed by ictus (thank you!)

Arthur met his new landlords when he was late to view a room. 

He’d been to Paris once before, but the last time he’d been nineteen and not so discerning with his attention or his money. Arthur liked to think he had learned since. 

For what it was worth, nineteen-year-old Arthur would have been appalled at the state of the room he was to rent. None of the furniture matched; the closet was too small, and there were rickety bookshelves sticking out indiscriminately all over the walls, including one protruding from just above the bed, which Arthur imagined caused problems when one got out of bed in the mornings. 

“This room used to function as a bedroom and study. My husband’s uncle came here to retire from California. He liked everything in one place,” said the woman who was showing him around. She’d introduced herself as a Mrs. Mallorie Cobb, but insisted that Arthur called her Mal. It was bad luck, she supposed, in French, but it was what her husband had always called her since they’d met and she liked that – his improbable American sense for opportunity.

“You married an American?” That surprised Arthur, but he couldn’t exactly say why. 

“Do you find that odd?” Mal returned. Arthur looked at her up and down and decided that she was probably in her mid-thirties, that she probably thought him young and perhaps a little stupid. Though in his initial e-mail enquiring about the room’s availability, Arthur had mentioned that he was still in the process of obtaining his doctorate in the social sciences from Princeton, but due to some personal issues, he’d been advised by various parties to take a semester off. 

If Arthur was really honest, he thought they were all overreacting. A failed relationship was, statistically more an irrelevant occurrence than a relationship that worked. Divorce rates were on the up, and so were hilarious efforts to avoid the age old cliches starting to really surface around what Arthur would have liked to have termed “monogamous anxiety” but so far the research had stalled.

And research didn’t lie, so there it was. Arthur was tired as shit, and he needed some time.

Arthur had made a beeline for Paris even though he couldn’t quite afford it. He didn’t know why, but that in itself was not a shocking thing, recently. Arthur didn’t know why he did a lot of things. 

“It’s not uncommon,” said Arthur. “The world is smaller now; people travel. People meet other people they might not otherwise meet.” 

“You are a very practical person, Arthur.” Mal said, and it only vaguely sounded like an insult. “Are you alone here in Paris?” 

“I am alone enough,” Arthur nodded. “You and your husband don’t have to worry about guests. If that’s something that you worry about.”

The room was very cheap and it was near the Louvre. In other words, there had to be something wrong with it. Arthur was beginning to see why the room was so cheap, but maybe there was something else, too. It probably wasn’t just the shelves. “Guests don’t bother Dom and me. If you meet a nice _mademoiselle_ or a dashing _monsieur_ and think they can stomach this room, they are more than welcome.” 

Arthur’s face must have done something funny, because Mal said, “...Or was that presumptuous?” 

Arthur swallowed, “It was a bit.” It was also not entirely untrue, but not something he was prepared to tell his landlady. 

“I’ll tell you something else, then,” Mal touched his arm, “The uncle died in this room. So if you’re ever after a conversation stopper, there it is. Quite a little fact to keep in your back pocket.” 

–

 

The house was big, but it echoed like all the rooms were squeezed together not two feet away from each other, and the first two weeks he stayed there Arthur wondered if it was possible to move to another room. 

He was careful to watch his head every morning when he got up, but that didn’t take away from the fact that Dom and Mal Cobb sounded very married upstairs, most nights. 

Underneath the floorboards by the bed was a bottle of half-empty cognac that someone (presumably Dom’s uncle) left behind. It was pretty good stuff, and it managed to knock Arthur right out. 

–

 

“I’m making crepes,” Dom Cobb announced when Arthur wandered into the kitchen in just a t-shirt and shorts one Saturday morning. Dom wasn’t wearing a shirt and Arthur could tell the guy went to the gym regularly. Arthur also stared a moment longer than was polite because he didn’t think Dom was paying him any special mind. “Usually Mal doesn’t condone my making them, but she’s asleep.” 

“...Are they _that_ terrible?” It smelled good, at any rate. Arthur could detect the meaty aroma of well-seasoned steak and earthy mushrooms. 

“I’d venture to say they’re pretty good,” said Dom, “Here. Have a smell. Have some coffee too, I put a pot on.” 

Arthur noted that this was his first real interaction with Dom, who he’d only seen in passing and had dinner with once soon after he’d moved in properly. Mal had grilled fish (turbot or something else) with some sort of fresh lime-ish salsa and it’d been _amazing_. He nodded thanks to the offer of coffee, helped himself to a mug and padded over to the stove. 

“Well?” 

Arthur could also smell Dom’s very nice and possibly expensive aftershave; he couldn’t exactly be sure. Arthur’s expertise when it came to expensive things stopped short at how much a suit took to get dry-cleaned. Arthur only had the one suit like a lot of early-career academics. He kept that to himself, “I don’t cook much. But yeah, I mean. Is there that much you could do to mess up steak?” 

Dom stared at him. “Was that an insult?” 

“No?” Arthur took refuge in his coffee. “I’m doing a doctorate. I don’t do people. I also don’t cook much, so maybe don’t listen to me.” 

That came out wrong. Arthur was going to regret that starting now. But he never could “people.” He found numbers more manageable and most of those were easy on the eyes anyway. Dom, however, seemed to take Arthur’s fuckup in great stride and actually _laughed_. It was the sort of laugh that reminded Arthur of sitting at the back of some bar back in Jersey, wishing he was somewhere else. 

But there was something familiar and even inviting about it, the laugh, dipping into a baritone from his usual tenor octave that took Arthur away from Jersey and then back to the present here in Paris. In the company of a man who looked like he should be on television and –

“Mal was right about you,” said Dom. 

“Right about what?” Arthur said. 

“Oh, a lot of things,” Dom shrugged and headed towards the fridge. “She often is; it’s why I married her. Do you want a mimosa?” 

It was only later that Arthur thought Mal was right too. 

There was something infuriating and American about Dom’s sense of transatlantic optimistism. On the flip-side, there was something charming and weirdly foreign about Dom standing in an old house in the middle of Paris that Arthur could conceive of Mal finding it attractive.

Hell, maybe Arthur found it attractive too. 

He really should go back to his room. Or outside, have a coffee somewhere to escape how _weird_ this was. But Arthur did none of those things and shrugged and went to fetch the proper glasses from the cabinet. “I’d love a mimosa.” 

–

“I get it,” Dom said, over a dwindling glass of sauv blanc and snapped his fingers in almost boyish triumph. “You can’t people so you’ve turned people into figures. That’s genius, man.” 

“He’s being _ironique_ ,” Mal twisted her mouth in a very pretty way and Arthur wanted her to say the word again. She was wearing a blue-yellow floral sundress that stopped a few inches above her knees and her bare legs and slightly bronzed skin were doing slightly unhealthy things to Arthur’s person. 

They were sitting outside Aux Folies, where the setting sun aided by the artificial lighting bathed everything in red-orange and the thrum of something eighties-sounding was coming out of the bar proper. Mal uncrossed her legs and Arthur could feel Dom staring too. 

“I’m not really,” said Dom, only a bit defensively. “I’m _impressed_. _Muy impresionado_ , okay.”

Arthur did not speak Spanish, but that did things, too. 

“That’s not even French,” said Mal and Dom squeezed her knee, as was his prerogative. 

Now Arthur really couldn’t really tell who was being ironic. It was moments like this, of which there were increasingly many, since he’d gotten into the habit of joining the Cobbs for drinks which made him wonder if they were testing him for something; like they were looking to. Such outings always took place on weeknights. Weekends were too busy and despite both husband and wife being somewhat gainfully employed (though who knew as _what_ ) they had a lot of free time and openly used the rent money Arthur gave them to drink. 

He would have more pissed off about it, but found he couldn’t work up the energy.

More often than not, the Cobbs fed him dinner, and sometimes when Arthur came into the kitchen when they were not at home, he was always welcome to whatever. Sometimes there were even containers in the fridge with his name on it. Literally. They wrote him post-its along the lines of _Arthur, try this!_ (usually Dom’s exuberant American scrawl) and then Mal underneath in her English, sedate and continental: _No, don’t eat that. C’est terrible! Do yourself a favor and go buy a croissant instead._

Most of the time, Arthur did both. He ate whatever Dom made, and then also went out and bought extra croissants and kept them in the breadbox. He liked to think he was becoming more discerning about food and maybe finding out too, with some sadness because Mal grilled a mean turbot (it _was_ turbot, after all) that he disliked seafood. There was just something about the texture of fish that just didn’t sit right with him. 

–

 

It wasn’t until Arthur was really drunk one Wednesday night that he drew out a series of equations on a napkin. Dom said he was impressed again and Mal put her hand near Arthur’s hip and said, “...Who knew science could be so depressing.” 

“It’s not depressing,” Arthur argued, although he was distracted by Mal’s very brightly red fingernails. She’d been doing them in the kitchen with her fingers spread out on an old dish towel when Arthur had come in to refill his cup of coffee. She’d told him, that if he was interested in that sort of thing, that her nails weren’t red, they were “carnal red.” Knowing the shade of a color, the exact specifics, sometimes specifics could save a room. 

And Arthur had no idea what she was talking about, but sure, he liked a woman who liked specifics.

Wait, what? 

“Just...well, it’s nice to know what you’re getting into,” said Arthur, fading ever so as Mal’s carnal red nails slowly took over the rest of his brain. “What’s the harm of knowing that...things don’t work out? I can go on a million dates and still not find her. Him. There isn’t harm in knowing that as some sort of fact.” 

“But is it a fact?” Dom said. “We’re sitting here.” 

“We who?” 

“The two of us, three of us.” Dom leaned a bare elbow on Arthur’s shoulder and Arthur was suddenly, nearly unbearably so, of way Dom’s elbow fit against the curve of his neck. “Whichever.” 

Arthur looked at Dom’s elbow and he looked down at his scrawls on the napkin. “You know anomalies are called that for a reason, right? Look,” he took up the pencil and wrote down a number plus a word - _6.52 BILLION_. “So that’s the number we start with, because that’s how many people are in the world, right? So once. Once you whittle down the number by people living in developed countries, so you know, I could have a decent chance of even meeting them, in the appropriate age bracket, are intelligent and attractive…and, and here’s the kicker, right? That they have to like me back. You’d still end up with this number. This represents the number of people available. You’d never sleep.” 

He poked the napkin at the Cobbs, and husband and wife each took turns peering at it.

“That’s a pretty big number,” said Dom.

“At least we’re both included, _cheri_ ,” Mal said. “Right, Arthur?” 

“My point is,” Arthur pushed on. “Out of this number, you find one person. One. That is statistically impossible. So it’s just better to forget it.” He threw up his hands, and then realized that Mal had said something else. “...I’m sorry, what?” 

“That’s how cowardice is born,” Mal said with a pretty click of her tongue. “It’s like a disease. A slow cancer of the mind. It can so easily take over a person’s whole being, don’t you know?” 

“I am not a coward,” Arthur protested. “I’m _practical_.” 

What was going on here? Arthur blinked rather owlishy between his landlords and found that he really didn’t know. 

“Oh, darling,” Mal curled her hand around his. Dom moved, and dropped his head to fit against the crook of Arthur’s neck, where his elbow had been before. It was still warm. 

“If that’s all you think there is in this world, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” 

–

Arthur woke up in his rented bedroom in the old creaky house still wearing his clothes from the night before. He had no real memory of how he got there, but he was most definitely hungover, which explained things. He hadn’t been this hungover since his first time in Paris. For a moment, as he was still groggy from sleep, Arthur had this hilarious thought that everything was going to be fine.

In his optimism, he sat straight up and promptly knocked his head against the shelf right over the headboard and swore, loudly. 

“...Arthur? You alive in there?” 

It was Dom at the door, which Arthur preferred marginally more than Mal because. Because? He couldn’t exactly say why. Arthur tried to get out of bed again, this time with a little more success. He managed to not lose any more brain cells, and although he was still a bit unsteady on his feet, he got to the door without falling sideways. 

Dom was also, Arthur was relieved to see, just a bit worse for wear. His hair not too far off from telltale tousled bedhead, and there was a glassy sheen over Dom’s eyes, a necessary sign that he was having a rough time of it. Arthur knew it was petty, but he was glad anyway. 

Dom said, “Coffee?” 

Arthur said, “Thank fuck.” 

Dom handed over a thermos without pretense, the sort that a certain brand of tourist took on vacation. It was filled to the brim and he watched with some amusement as Arthur did his best to inhale from it, like he’d come in parched from the Sahara. 

“Easy there,” said Dom. “There’s plenty.” 

The coffee was good, great, amazing. It tasted better than yesterday, but then yesterday Arthur hadn’t been on the brink of death. 

“Also don’t tell Mal I’ve used the thermos,” Dom looked Arthur up and down. 

“Why?” 

“Because,” Dom gave him an almost conspiratorial wink. “Well, you know. If it were up to her, this thing wouldn’t be in the house. But I knew it would come in handy.” 

“Yeah?” Arthur peeked past Dom and tried to listen for noise. “Where is Mal, anyway?” 

“She went shopping for breakfast,” Dom leaned casually against the doorframe and Arthur noted the distance between them had halved. He found that he liked it, and was not worried. 

“How is she okay?” 

“She always is,” Dom shrugged. “Which could be good for us, so I don’t question it.” 

“Maybe you should,” Arthur suggested. “It’s not normal.” His brain halfway scooped up the much-needed caffeine now in his system kind of realized that Dom had said “us.”

Don shifted again and gestured for the thermos. Arthur handed it back to him and watched as Dom drank from it, with little regard to Arthur’s alcohol-laced spit. Arthur watched the bump of his throat and suddenly wanted to touch it. 

“I didn’t marry her because she was normal,” Dom said. Then he stuck the thermos back towards Arthur again. “Here, have the rest, we’re going to need it.” 

–

 

Summer seemed perennial in Paris. Maybe that was the reason why Arthur had come here. He subscribed to facts, but there were a few human parts of him that liked nostalgia and was thirsty for it. And the human parts of Arthur slowly woke up, thanks to Mal’s pinkish sundress and Dom’s tanned forearms. He even liked what it meant, what it could portend because memory was a way too, of looking towards the future. 

They were sitting with wine again, or at least Mal and Dom were having wine and Arthur was having beer. Because. His head still hurt, but Dom assured him that more alcohol would help (but in moderation, of course). 

“So I was thinking about what you said last night,” said Dom. 

“I don’t remember what I said last night,” Arthur said. 

“I was just thinking too,” Mal said, possibly ignoring Arthur out of kindness. “If it’s a matter of numbers, then what’s the harm in hedging your bets? Fall in love with two people at once. Then it becomes a statistical anomaly and completely out of the ordinary. Anomalies are not a terrible thing, always, _non_? Life is too short to be ordinary, Arthur. You should be more than that instead.” 

Dom’s expression told him nothing, just about. But the man took his hand and maybe that was better than a number. Arthur said to his beer, “I’d rather be ordinary than stuck holding the wrong end of a bell curve.” 

But then, Arthur supposed there was no harm too, in taking a step forward. Somehow the sun felt even warmer on his skin.


End file.
